Stay
by a-word-nerd
Summary: "All I really need is for you to stay here." Finnick goes to visit Annie in the hospital right after she wins her Games.


AN: I'm starting to run out of one shots! I only have three or four left to go up! But I'm definitely going to keep writing and I want to start a longer project in a month or so once classes are over and I have a little more time. I haven't quite decided what I want to do yet, so if anyone has any ideas please send them my way! Thank you times a millions to everyone who's been reviewing and favoriting; it means a lot to me. :)

Annie was drowning.

Sure, they had lifted her out of the flood in the arena into the hovercraft and taken her back to the Capitol. Yes, she was in a hospital bed with no standing water in sight. The 70th annual Hunger Games were over; she had won. But it didn't matter. She was still drowning.

Everywhere she looked, she saw blood. It dripped down the walls and covered the doctors and nurses who were trying to tend to her. It stained everything in her line of sight the same sickening shade of crimson that it had been when her fellow tribute's head had been gruesomely detached from his body. Worst of all, it covered her own hands, and no amount of frantic scrubbing was making it go away.

Someone was screaming. Someone was screaming desperately, pleading for help. She didn't know who it was. It was probably one of the Careers. They were killing off one of their own before they came to find her. It was probably Max, the boy tribute from her district, about to become just another piece in the Capitol's games. It wasn't until Annie's throat was raw that she realized that the screams belonged to her.

But there were other voices, too. Some sounded irritated: "Can we please get some morphine in this girl?" Some sounded concerned. "We have to get rid of those cuts on her face...the interviews are tomorrow night." But there was one that sounded practically frantic, like her.

"Please, let me see her! Just for a minute."

"We're sorry, Mr. Odair. We have to get her fixed up as soon as possible. The cameras are waiting, and you're going to have to do the same."

Pause. Then the first voice spoke with a tone of deadly calm. "Look at my face and listen to what I'm saying to you. I don't care if every reporter and camera crew in the nation of Panem is stationed outside this hospital. The Games that your Capitol has the nerve to call entertainment are what did this to her. Now, I've had some experience with this myself, and I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty that if you think you can clean her up and make her look pretty again so she'll be all ready to smile for the pictures and sit through interviews with Caesar Flickerman, you are very sorely mistaken. If there is any sense at all in your head, you will let me into that room."

There was another pause, longer this time. Then Annie heard the door open. "You have five minutes."

Finnick came slowly into the hospital room, looking like he hadn't slept in days. Annie figured he probably hadn't.

"Hello, Annie," he said softly.

"Hello, Finnick," she whispered. Her throat still felt like sandpaper from all the screaming.

Finnick took a few more steps closer to the bed. "May I sit down?"

She nodded and moved over a little to make room for him. He sat down and took a deep breath, but didn't say anything. Neither did she. There was nothing to say.

After a minute of very heavy silence, Finnick finally spoke. "I won't insult you by asking if you're okay," he said. "There's nothing either of us can do or say right now that will make any sense. So I'll just ask...do you need anything?"

Annie thought for a moment. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to leave her experience in the arena behind and never look back. But she couldn't do that right now, and he couldn't do it for her. Even so, as soon as he had come in, the blood on the walls and on her hands had started to go away. She thought that had to be at least a small step in the right direction.

"I just really need you to stay here," she whispered finally.

Finnick then did the only thing that he could think to do just then-he leaned towards her and cautiously wrapped her in his arms. Annie hesitated for a split second before hugging him back with a surprising amount of strength.

"All I really need is for you to stay here." She repeated.

"I will," Finnick whispered into her hair. "I swear, as long as you need me to...I will."


End file.
